Ebb & Flow

Lisu Vega explores memory’s haunting cycles, shaped profoundly by her experience with perimenopause. Through this work, Vega transforms memory’s ebb and flow into a physical journey that maps the inner landscape of her life, weaving together past and present in a dynamic narrative of family, identity, and personal evolution. Drawing from family archives and photographic images, this piece becomes a space where time collapses, and memories long buried surface anew.

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Through intimate conversations, Vega describes her encounter with perimenopause as a reawakening of her earliest memories, sometimes so vivid that they overwhelm her senses. Researching this cognitive shift, Vega discovered the physiological changes brought on by perimenopause—the hormonal shifts that can weaken short-term memory yet often bring long-held memories into sharp focus. This interplay between biology and memory fuels her work, with each panel of the tapestry reflecting her unique position in the cycle of remembering, forgetting, and rediscovering.

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The tapestries of A Momentary Whole capture the intensity of this experience, layered with photographs, fabrics, and objects that bear both the beauty and scars of time. Her grandmother’s zinc-roofed home, the beloved white Chevrolet that transported her family on countless trips, and sepia-toned images burned by time’s passage populate her woven archive. For Vega, these memories are not static images but living artifacts that vibrate with emotion, rooted in a visceral connection to her ancestors and their stories. Each embedded photo or piece of fabric pulses with the tactile sensation of memory recalled—solid, unyielding, and full of life, even as it remains elusive and ever-shifting.

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This process of recollection, intensified by perimenopause, creates a deeply cyclical rhythm within Vega’s work. Her tapestry unfolds like the tides of memory, with vivid moments surfacing unexpectedly and fading again, echoing the oceanic cycles of forgetting and remembering. To honor this fluidity, she uses recycled rope and textile fibers, patiently unraveling and reweaving them into textured forms. The fibers carry the fingerprints of her labor, mirroring the way memories fray and mend over time, shaped by the body’s own rhythms and transformations. For Vega, the act of creating each fiber layer becomes a means of grounding herself in the cycle, helping her capture both fleeting emotions and memories she calls “ever-present.”

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In a poignant nod to this process, Vega chose to assemble much of A Momentary Whole on-site, sewing each panel as part of a ritualistic composition that respects the unpredictability of memory. As she threads each layer, Vega relives these memories, feeling the tactile release of “draining” emotions, using needle and thread as her instruments of recollection and catharsis. For her, each stitch, each photo, and each object serves as a map of the places she has been and the people who have shaped her journey.

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In A Momentary Whole, Lisu Vega reveals the profound resonance between memory and the cyclical nature of life stages. The tapestry invites viewers to move through her stories, confronting the universality of memory as both a personal archive and a shared experience. Vega’s work challenges us to consider memory as something beyond a mere record; it is a vibrant, living entity that shapes and is shaped by our bodies, our stories, and the unrelenting flow of time. Through her tapestry, Vega offers an intimate yet universal cartography, one that encourages us to find within it the familiar rhythms of our own lives.

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Exhibition Text by Sophie Bonet

October 2024